The (series) pages kind of sucks, don't they?

My knee-jerk reaction is to say make a proposal about it, since most folks on the wiki won't have seen this discussion and there will probably be a lot of strong reactions to the terrible lists suddenly getting nuked out of the blue, and a proposal is much stronger backing than an informal, months-old forum discussion.
 
That has been my concern the entire time this collaboration has been created. We can't simply tear off all the series pages, which were formatted terribly for years and became its own horrible little template for future awful series pages, without advance notice.

This is probably one of the most massive projects we have to do in such a while. >_>'
 
It's my Fall break and I told myself and Walkazo I'd actually try to advance this project now that I have the opportunity to. So here's a draft for what I think the gameplay sections should be like:

==Gameplay==

The ''Donkey Kong Country'' series play like traditional platformers. The player plays the role of two [[Kong]]s, who must reach the end of each levels while avoiding enemies and obstacles. The Kongs can collect items such as [[Bananas]] or [[Banana Coins]] to increase their life counts or purchase goods. Various type of [[Barrel]]s are present throughout the levels, which can be used to defeat enemies or reveal hidden passages. [[Animal Friends]] are often found throughout the levels, which can be ridden or provide passive assistance to the player. Unlike the ''[[Super Mario (series)|Super Mario]]'' series, platforms and obstacles tend to be "naturally" integrated into the levels, although this rule is not always adhered to.

''Donkey Kong Country'' games are divided into worlds, all containing a variable number of levels, friendly [[Kongs]] who provide services such as saving, tips and minigames, and a boss battle that marks the end of the world. Worlds tend to be linear, although ''Donkey Kong Country 3'''s map allow for a limited degree of exploration.

A key feature of the series is the interplay betwen the playable Kongs. [[Donkey Kong]] and [[Diddy Kong]] in the original game have different abilities, with Diddy being more agile but unable to defeat some enemies, and Donkey Kong being stronger and holding barrels differently, thus encouraging the player to switch between available Kongs depending on the situation. This dynamic would be retained and expanded in the sequels with the addition of the [[Team-up]] move.


The ''Donkey Kong Country'' series features an heavy item collection component. The original ''Donkey Kong Country'' encourage players to find all of the games hidden [[Bonus Area]]s, with 100% completion unlocking an extended ending sequence. ''Donkey Kong Country 2'' expanded on this concept with the addition of hidden [[DK Coins]] and the presence of an entire post-completion world with a final boss battle, which can only be accessed by finding and successfully completing the game's bonus areas. ''Donkey Kong Country 3'' features a similar hidden world and again expands the mechanic by featuring another item collection sidequest which extends beyond the game's bonus world.

===Retro Studios installments===

The ''Donkey Kong Country'' games developed by [[Retro Studios]] largely stay true to the original [[Rare]] trilogy, although a key difference is the implementation of the different playable characters. Rather than being fully-featured playable characters, the Kongs beside Donkey Kong act as powerups expanding Donkey Kong's health and moveset, although they are fully playable in multiplayer and ''Tropical Freeze''s Hard Mode.

Another difference is that while the original trilogy only allowed the player characters to take one hit in a deliberate effort to "reduce clutter"<ref></ref> on the screen, Donkey Kong can now take multiple hits, with a visible indicator showing his remaining health.
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I thought I should maybe write something abou barrel blasting, but this is tl;dr enough as is. Thoughts?
 
Should you mention that Donkey Kong Country games are relatively difficult compared to most platformers? Maybe talk about its graphics? Donkey Kong Country's graphical style (well, at least in the first three games) are very distinctive and one of the first games to use pre-rendered assets.
 
Pi said:
Difficulty is subjective, so no. The graphical style is something worth mentioning, though.
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Except Donkey Kong Country games are known to be difficult. It's their schtick. There are technically subjective statements in the draft as well, such as "an[sic] heavy item collection component". Maybe note it in general reception or something like that, if there's gonna be a general reception section.

As for the recent post, better late than never.
 
Dr. Mario said:
Pi said:
Difficulty is subjective, so no. The graphical style is something worth mentioning, though.
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Except Donkey Kong Country games are known to be difficult. It's their schtick.
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I'd argue that games like Super Meat Boy and Binding of Isaac have difficulty as their schtick. DKC has other things going for it.
 
Didn't mean to say that it's their only schtick, but I still think it's notable enough to mention that.
 
Pi said:
Difficulty is subjective, so no. The graphical style is something worth mentioning, though.
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Sure. I actually suggested making section for the visuals on individual game pages but the idea didn't get much traction.

re difficulty: Gee, I don't know. I don't remember behind-the-scene materials stressing the difficulty of the games. Maybe the Retro games, but not so much the Rare ones. I guess it could be implemented as part of a reception section.
 
I don't know why I even overlooked it, but I would definitely agree to that I idea (y'know, since I came up with it independently). Games should talk more about their graphics. After all, graphics are part of gameplay and game design.

I'm not sure if some games need their own designated section, especially if graphics are typical generic trash like select New Super Mario Bros. games. If that's the case, it should be mentioned in a one sentence integrated into the gameplay section or similarities to other games sections or whatever.
 
my attempt at writing a grafx section

The first ''Donkey Kong Country'' is famed for its usage of pre-rendered 3D sprites, which were rendered on then-cutting edge [[wikipedia:Silicon Graphics|Silicon Graphics]] workstation. Although not the first game to use such graphics (the Sharp X68000 version of [[wikipedia:Ys I: Ancient Ys Vanished|Ys] and [[Viewpoint (video game)|Viewpoint]] feature similar pre-rendered sprites, and predate ''Donkey Kong Country'' by some years), ''Donkey Kong Country'' was the first mainstream game to be extensively marketed around its pre-rendered graphics, with commercials for the game playing up that the SNES was able to output a game of its visual fidelity without needing expensive add-ons<ref>[link to "you won't play this on sega" commercial], in a potshot to the competing Sega Genesis.

Retro Studios installemnts use fully-rendered 3D models. In an interview, it was noted that ''Donkey Kong Country Return'''s levels featured three time as much polygons as a room in the studio's previous game, [[metroidwiki:Metroid Prime 3: Corruption|Metroid Prime 3: Corruption]]''<ref>[http://ca.ign.com/articles/2010/06/17/e3-2010-kensuke-tanabe-and-the-metroid-palm-tree?page=2 ]
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i'm not sure if "fully-rendered 3D model" is a thing that makes sense, lol
 
Say "live-rendered #D models" instead, because models can't be "partially" rendered if you get my drift. So yeah, it doesn't make much sense. :P
 
Does the Kondey Kong Country games have any influence on the gaming industry when it comes to its Grafix?

Yeah, don't use "fully-rendered" since the pre-rendered sprites are technically fully-rendered, but as a sequence of images.
 
there was a notable upsurge in games using pre-rendered sprites after DKC. games like vectorman, doom troopers, and johnny bazookatone were clearly made as a response to DKC.

dunno how to write that in, tho. anyone can contribute.
 
Just say that it has a legacy and is a factor in starting a trend with pre-rendered sprites. I was just curious to know because Super Mario 64 also is credited with starting a trend with 3D collection-based platforming, and Donkey Kong Country might be an equivalent.
 
I added the two sections added above since nobody objected to their actual content. Now to find a satisfactory format for the game lists...
 
Here's an idea: scrap the lists altogether, discuss each game briefly in subheaders and use {{main}} to direct readers to a more extensive article on the subject.
 
Maybe create a gallery of games similar to the console articles? Or maybe use a format similar to List of games?

...the idea's probably not too great.
 
An user rewrote the Mario (franchise) page to be entirely in prose and to be honest, I rather like it. It makes me realize the tables as they're used in the series page are useless and only make things uglier and box in the information.

So yeah, series pages all-proses, y/n?
 
I love how the crossovers, television and other media information has been moved within well structured paragraphs. We didn't need an image representing every form of such media. I'm liking this "prouse".

I'm seeing that SethAllen has removed entire protagonists/antagonists and item sections from the other series pages. Are these sections necessary at all, even if it were properly written within paragraphs? Or it is more prouse to not include such sections at all.

I haven't been very involved in these discussions about the series pages until now, just aiming to catch up and understand the new approaches we're taking.
 
The concensus at the beginning of this thread was to remove the character sections, but it wasn't an hard ruling or anything. I recently told an user to hold off writing more character bios on the Paper Mario (series) oages because I planned to make a proposal adressing this, though now I'm not so sure - I think how the rewritten Mario (franchise) page does it is really the way to go.

The removals and switch to prose format was entirely done by the user SethAllen, who doesn't appear to have seen this thread. Not that I'm going to hold that against him, because the result is really good.
 
porplemontage said:
Glowsquid said:
http://www.mariowiki.com/Talk:Donkey_Kong_(series)#Franchise.3F
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Mario is a special case because it's above everything. That article focuses on the game series, and I think the rest should remain as series.
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That is Steve's thoughts on the matter. You may want to convince him first.
 
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